Hit the road with Let's Drive!

Let me start by saying that S loves geography! We've been planning a road-schooling trip with another family for the past month and S is beyond excited about traveling. When Let's Drive arrived he was more than ready to open it and play as much as possible. I lost track of how long we played this game, but he loved every minute of it. It was great watching S learn new facts from the different states he traveled to. I also loved watching him work out his strategy on how to get from location to location in the least amount of moves.

The idea is to travel around the USA and collect destination cards with state facts on them, though you only have a limited amount of moves each turn so you have to make sure you use them wisely. If someone else lands on one of your locations you can get postcards from them too. Also, if you collect sets of destination cards you can get bonus cards which offer extra points, extra moves, and other fun things to make the game more interesting. The game ends when someone reaches 16 points, though we played to 32 the first time because S wanted to keep playing. The recommended ages are 8+, but if you have a child who is enthusiastic about traveling and geography I don't see why a younger age should limit anything. Do note that the pieces are small cars and the point chips are small so children who might put pieces in their mouths should be supervised during game play. This game is great for geography, learning state facts, and strategy.

If you would like to learn more about Let's Drive or to order please visit here. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have about this or any other games!

Family Favorite: Dreaming Dragon!

One of our family's favorite games is Dreaming Dragon. The idea behind the game is that the mother dragon is sleeping with her eggs. All of the lizards are in her nest space too and she won't be happy about that when she wakes up so your job is to help the lizards escape without breaking any of her eggs.

It is currently one of the only games we own that Z can actually play too so he is always thrilled when we pull it out for family game night. One of the other reasons that this game is popular in our house is that both boys can play it together without me being right there. They don't need me to read instructions or help with anything, so if they want to play a game and I'm in the middle of dinner, let's say, they can just pull it out, set it up, and have some fun. S is old enough to do the final score at the end to determine who wins too.

Game play is very simple. You set the dragon on the table, pile the lizards on top, then add the golden eggs on top of the lizards. Then each player takes turns collecting lizards using their pinchers. If any fall you don't get to keep them and if any golden eggs fall those reflect negatively on your score. Once all the lizards are off the dragon it's time to figure out the score. You take away one lizard for each golden egg that you dropped, then tally up how many lizards each player has left. The person with the most lizards wins. It's so simple and so fun! It's also great for hand eye coordination, strategy, and concentration while you are trying to figure out how to get lizards without dropping any eggs. The recommended age for this game is 6+ as there are small parts, but considering my 2 and 4 year old can handle it I recommend it for their age group too. **Disclaimer: If your child still puts things in their mouth supervision is required because the eggs are small and I'm sure a lizard could be eaten if someone tried. We don't want anyone to choke!**

If you'd like more information on Dreaming Dragon or to order please visit here. As always, I'm here to answer any questions!

Foodle Fun!

Today's game is Foodle. It is all about nutrition and making healthy choices. To play, everyone puts their game piece on start. There are question cards, which are mostly multiple choice or true/ false with a few open ended questions, and there are Foodle-Do! cards that when drawn dictate that the player perform some physical activity (marching in place, hopping, etc.). Basic game play is that a player rolls the die, then someone takes a Foodle question card and asks that person the question. If the player gets the question correct they move their piece however many spaces they rolled on the die. If they guess incorrectly they move back that many spaces. If a person lands on a Foodle-Do! space they have to draw a Foodle-Do! card and do the activity. The first person to reach finish wins. This game is recommended for ages 8+, which makes sense given the level of most of the questions, but I do have to say that S really enjoyed playing it!

Here are some examples of Foodle-Do! cards:

Flapping like a chicken!

"March in place to the count of 5"
"Flap your arms like a chicken 5 times"
"Run around the table 1 time"
"Pat your head and rub your stomach 5 times"
"Thumb wrestle with the player to your right."

Here are some examples of question cards to give you an idea of what is asked:

"True or false: Probiotics are dead bugs found in food."
"True or false: Bacteria in the digestive system are called microflora." 
"True or false: "It's not important for children to eat food high in fiber." 
"Which type of fat is better for you? A. Monounsaturated fat,  B. Saturated fat"
"Which vitamin helps you to see better in the dark? A. Vitamin A,  B. Vitamin B2"
"How many ounces of meat or poultry is recommended per day? A. 6oz,  B. 4 oz,  C. 16 oz"
"Do olives contain healthy fat?"
"Cashew nuts contain zinc. Does zinc inhibit digestion?"

S requested this game specifically today because we hadn't played it together before. I mentioned to him that it was meant for kids a little older, but he was undeterred. He ended up really enjoying himself. He loved having to perform Foodle-Do! cards, but he also really liked answering questions. There were some that you could see he just had no idea and was guessing blindly, but others he answered without hesitation and was right. I was pretty surprised, and pleasantly so since I thought the game was fun! I think the thing that S and I both liked most about this game was that even if we got a question wrong we learned something new. For S, winning is pretty big at this point in his life so when he loses in most games he gets a bit down on himself (we're working on this, of course), but with this game it didn't even phase him when he missed a question because he still gained some new knowledge. I ended up winning when we played today (not by much, I might add) and instead of feeling bad about it S just let me know that the next time we played he'd win. Then he went off to pick another game to play. That was a pretty rewarding moment for me to see how well he dealt with losing and I am so glad he asked to play this today!

Balancing while counting.

Marching in place while counting.

For more information, including a video, about Foodle please visit here and please feel free to contact me with any questions!

Fun with Unravel!

Another one of our new games is Unravel. This game is very cute! Basic game play is as follows: Someone rolls the die and everyone checks what color it ends up on. Once you know the color you find the matching kite and try to be the first one to follow the string correctly to the character flying the kite. Once a person thinks they know the answer they grab the character card and yell STOP. Whoever guesses correctly gets a pinwheel and the person with the most pinwheels at the end wins.

Now you may be saying that this game is too easy because after a while you just know where the strings lead, but the game makers accounted for that! So, to shake things up a bit the board is divided into 4 pieces and each piece is double sided. When a person correctly guesses the kite flier they get to choose one board piece to flip over, which alters the string layout. There is also an added element where there is a picture of a balloon and a picture of a bird on 2 of the sides. If the side where you can see the bird or balloon is visible, then when someone rolls the color of either of those things the players don't try to figure out the kite string but race to be the first one to grab the balloon or bird card. This game is really good for mental mapping, quick thinking, and color recognition.

S really enjoyed the game and he played it for quite a while. I didn't really partake in the guessing because I wanted him to have a chance to figure it out, but he didn't seem to mind that I was just watching and cheering him on. To keep Z happy during the game he was dubbed the official die roller and that worked out well too. Z would roll, we'd all yell out the color, and S would go to work trying to figure it out as fast as possible. It was fun for all of us, but I know S would enjoy it more to play with some of his friends. We may have to set up a few SimplyFun playdates soon!  Also, you may notice our dog in the background. She thought we were all crazy with yelling colors and we were clearly disrupting her nap...

If you would like more information about Unravel or to order please visit here. I'm also happy to answer any questions you might have!

After we cleaned up Unravel, Z wanted to play Tibbar's Tangrams. I posted a review on that game here. Of course Z is still a bit too young to grasp creating pictures with the pieces, but he really enjoys shouting out the names of the shapes at whoever will listen (including our dog) and then stacking them however he likes at that moment. It was really comical that day because each time he'd yell the shape at the dog, she'd lift her head in response and then when he'd go back to stacking she'd lay back down again.I'm just happy that he knows his shapes!

My boys are really enjoying all of these games and we're looking forward to a few more new ones in the mail soon!

Mirror Mansion Mania!

The newest game in our collection is Mirror Mansion! It is one of the games that I noticed before I became a consultant and just knew that we had to have it. Well, today it came in the mail and S and I finally got to play! It is exactly what I hoped it would be and S couldn't get enough of it. There were actually tears when it was time to stop playing!

The basic idea is that you have to find different treasures located around the mansion by strategically placing the mirrors so that you can see the one you're looking for through the viewing window, and your mirror movements are limited. The person who has the most jewels at the end wins. The board is double sided with one side showing reflection lines while the other does not. You have the option for basic play or advanced with the option to rotate the board to make remembering treasure locations a bit more challenging. This game is great for learning about reflection, angles, basic strategy, and memorization.

We played using the side of the board with reflection lines, which helped S get a feel for how everything worked. We also did not rotate the board because S is not quite there yet, but it'll be fun when he is! It did not take him very long at all to figure out how to place the mirrors to get the reflections working in his favor. I was impressed! Now, while several of his guesses on the locations of certain treasures were not correct his mirror placements to get to those locations were perfect. He was beyond excited when he did guess correctly though.  It was great to see him working out what angles he needed to use to get to where the treasures were, and of course his face lighting up when he found one was priceless!

This game has probably topped his favorite list for now, and just in case you were wondering what that list includes... His other preferred games are Pickles' Pig Tales, Clover Leap, and Digger's Garden Match. I reviewed those games previously here and here.

If you'd like to learn more about Mirror Mansion or to order please visit here. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. :)

Which treasure did he find?

Tibbar's Tangrams

Both of my kids like Tibbar's Tangrams. A while ago we bought the small blocks for S to use for school, but Tibbar's Tangrams pieces are big. The boys can play it and I don't have to worry about pieces getting lost! This game definitely gets bonus points from me for easy clean up!

Checking to make sure the rabbit was correct.

S loves that he can make "giant" things with them. It comes with a booklet of things the kids can try to make and the answers are in the back so they can check that they have the pieces in the right place. It's really cute. Z likes to watch S and enjoys stacking the pieces rather than creating pictures.

Making a squirrel

S already knows his shapes, but this game is really helping him hone his spatial awareness skills. He has to make sure he places the shapes in just the right spots to accurately represent the images in the booklet. Some images are more tricky than others for him, but he really enjoys the challenge of getting things just right. I can already see an improvement in his building abilities.

To learn more about Tibbar's Tangrams, watch a video about the game, or to order please go here. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!

Playing Pickles' Veggie Pick

Pickles' Veggie Pick is a really cute game. You play as a rabbit (Tibbar or one of his family members) and the goal is to avoid the dog and farmer Pickles while collecting as many veggies as you can. The catch is that you can only carry one veggie at a time so you have to make it back and forth from your rabbit hole to the veggie patches without getting caught. Each veggie is worth a different number of points and you can get more points if you get them from a patch that is not your color. The winner is the first person to get to 10 or more points.

S and I played this a couple days ago and for his first time playing he followed the rules pretty well. The recommended age for this game is 6+ and I'd say that's a pretty good estimate. S is only 4 so some of the strategy involved in getting the veggies for more points was lost on him, but he got the basic game play and enjoyed adding up his veggie totals at the end. He did end up winning with 11 points so that made him happy!

We have so many new games now that it's crazy! S has been on a serious game playing kick and weekly family game night is definitely one of our favorite nights of the week. I'll be posting a new review soon for Tibbar's Tangrams so check back for that!

For more info on this game please visit the link above and, as always, if you have any questions or want to buy a game please visit this site, find me on facebook, or leave a comment here!

Hello Friends and My Stuff Bags Foundation

Hello Friends is a cute, simple 2 player card game where kids can learn to say hello and goodbye in 6 languages. The goal is to match Hello cards and the first person to play all of their cards wins. S really likes it and it fits in perfectly with our current Cultures Around the World unit in our homeschool co-op. For more information on the game, including a video, please look here.

Now, something I really love about Hello Friends is that it is part of SimplyFun's SimplyCaring partnership with My Stuff Bags Foundation.  With every purchase of Hello Friends $5 goes towards the My Stuff Bags Foundation. If you don't know about the My Stuff Bags Foundation, here are their mission and vision statements (and please go to the link above for more on this great organization!):

"Our Mission 

The My Stuff Bags Foundation provides new belongings, comfort and hope to thousands of children each year who must be rescued from abuse, neglect and abandonment across the United States. By rallying widespread individual and corporate involvement through our unique “My Stuff Bags” program, we address the immediate physical and emotional needs of rescued children, and help support the agencies caring for them.

Our Vision 

The My Stuff Bags Foundation’s ultimate goal is to provide a My Stuff Bag filled with new belongings to each of the nearly 300,000 children each year who must enter crisis shelters and foster care with nothing of their own."

 

If you so choose, your purchase of Hello Friends will not only bring a fun, educational game into your household, but will assist in creating "My Stuff Bags" for many rescued children. I hope that everyone who reads this will consider this offer* through the SimplyCaring program. Make a difference today!

*please use this link for purchasing to make sure your donation is included.

 

Silly Stories from Pickles' Pig Tales!

 When I went to a SimplyFun party and encountered this game I was not convinced that I'd enjoy playing it with my kids. I envisioned that horrible "I'm going to a picnic and I'm bringing (insert whatever someone said)" game that I played in school as a child. It just seemed like a chore to remember a bunch of stuff. However, the difference between that picnic game and this one is that the picnic game was just remembering a bunch of random items while Pickles' Pig Tales is creating a silly story that everyone adds to. Now, I have to say that I find this game highly amusing and I do not mind playing it with my kids at all!

S told me yesterday that this is his new favorite game. He loves coming up with something to say for each card he draws. I love to watch him use his imagination to come up with things and see how well he remembers everything else. It's just great to see the wheels turning, so to speak.

Retelling the story.

Game play is basically that Pickles is invited to the castle to eat and the only way to enter the castle is to make up a silly story. Each player rolls the die and moves the appropriate amount of spaces (unless they roll Pickles' face in which they don't move and just draw a card). After moving, a card is drawn and the player says a part of the story to go with it. There are some arrows on the board that can mean draw a card and don't say anything, put a card back and its sentence is removed from the story, or switch one card for a new card in the deck and the sentence is changed for that part of the story. It can get pretty interesting and is definitely fun!

Overall, this is a really cute game. Although Z is too young to partake in the story telling he loved listening to the silly things we came up with and kept asking us to tell the story again. It was very cute to see him engaged even though he wasn't able to really play.

For more information on this game (product description and video) please look here.

While we were playing I decided to switch the camera to video so that I could show you an example of a random silly story. I love how excited he is at the end. Enjoy!

Fun with Clover Leap and Digger's Garden Match

Clover Leap and Digger's Garden Match were the first 2 SimplyFun games S played. Needless to say, he loves them!

Clover Leap    

This is a really cute game where the idea is to create silly sentences to get points. Basically, you move the sheep around and collect clovers either before all the clover tiles run out or the sun reaches the nighttime position. The clover tiles are broken into 4 colors; white for subject, blue for verb, yellow for adjective, and red for object. You need one of each color to make a complete sentence. One sentence that S made yesterday was " I make hairy buses." You can see how this can get quite amusing!

Rolling to see what to do next.

One part of the game that S loves is avoiding the sheep dog piece if someone moves it near your sheep. Of course, I'm sure it helps that I make a scared sheep face and really act it up so he laughs hysterically when the dog scares one of my sheep. When we first got this game we played it for a full hour and a half, only stopping for dinner. Since then S has asked to play it at least once a day. It is definitely one of his favorites!

For more information about Clover Leap or to order please click here.

Digger's Garden Match  

This game is also very popular in our house. The object of the game is to match tiles by either color or shape and moving your dog bone the appropriate amount until someone reaches 50 points on the board. This game can be as easy or as difficult as you make it. You can match 1, 2 , 3 or more sides together to see how many points you can get.

Deciding where to put his tile.

S is getting good at matching 2 sides of the tiles together, but he's only been able to match 3 sides a few times. On our last family game day, my husband and I had a little competition going to see who could match the most sides and get the most points. I topped out at 12 points for 3 sides before we ran out of tiles. It is a lot of fun and S asks to play this one all the time!

Final tile layout.

If you'd like more information about Digger's Garden Match please click here.





Overall, I would (and do) recommend these two games to anyone I talk to. They are a lot of fun and it's so great seeing the kids working out everything as they play.

If you'd like more information on games please feel free to contact me here or on my facebook page.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog, Play-Learn-Connect!

I recently attended a SimplyFun Party, and like many people I had no idea what to really expect. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the games that I got to play and by the end of the party I had ordered several to be able to play with my children. After those games arrived, my children were eager to start playing and so was I. We spent 3 fun-filled hours testing out different games on that first day! That just furthered my resolve that these games were great! The more I learned, played, and connected with my children the more I believed in the product so I decided that I would become a SimplyFun Independent Consultant. This blog will be dedicated to providing information, demos, special offers, and reviews on SimplyFun products that my children and I enjoy so I hope that you will check back frequently to see what fun we have in store!

I will now leave you with the wise words of the SimplyFun company and a link to the website so that you can learn more and browse the products.

"Learning & Connecting... Through Play!

At SimplyFun, we make learning fun and easy for children and keep families connected. How? Through the powerfully simple concept of PLAY. 

Play teaches children important academic, social and developmental skills. It helps them make sense of their world. From ABC's to saying please, children are hard-wired to learn through play. 

Play allows important human connections to take root, to grow, and to flourish. It allows us to share with each other — to really know each other as human beings. 

And ultimately, play lightens our load. It relieves stress and creates joyful memories that we can go back to mentally to help us through our rough patches. 

Play keeps our families connected!" - A Mission that Matters -SimplyFun